A History of Street and Street Library Part 2

A History of Street and Street Library part 2 (Interesting short pieces about the library and life in Street – by Angela Southern) Alice Clark was a woman of many talents. Here is a discussion of her book ‘The Working Life of Women in the 17th Century’ TRANSCRIPT OF A BROADCAST ON WOMAN’S HOUR – BBC RADIO 4 – 1998 Presenter – Jenni Murray (JM) Historian – Amy Ericson (AE) JM – Now Alice Clark was born in 1874 into the famous footwear manufacturing family, but her fame was not to come from making shoes; she wrote a ground-breaking history book called ‘The Working Life of Women in the 17th Century’, which is still in use today. In the next in our series of women historians Maria Burgess spoke to Amy Ericson about one of Somerset’s most famous daughters. As a young woman there was nothing to suggest what she would later achieve. AE – She had one sister who became a teacher and one sister who became a doctor, but Alice herself did a housewifery course then she went into the family firm. She started at the bottom and learned the basic skills and then worked her way up, although obviously with the help that she was the owner’s daughter, up to the top levels of management and she worked in the family firm for a long time. But she didn’t actually go into history until she was 38. JM – So why, this woman who was a director of the family firm, very much immersed in commerce, why did she suddenly take this time out to write a scholarly book? AE – She won Mrs Bernard Shaw’s scholarship to the LSE and she wanted to study 17th century women. It was a 2-year scholarship, this was interrupted by the war, she had meant to go and join her sister in France who was working as a doctor at a Quaker Hospital but her health prevented it, so instead she stayed in London, she continued to study 17th century women, much to our benefit, and then she finally finished the book. JANET MAW (Reader) (JM) – From ‘The Working Life of Women n the 17th Century’, Alice Clark 1919. The effect of the Industrial Revolution on home life and through that upon development and characters of women and upon their productive capacity deeply concerns the sociologist, for the increased productive capacity of mankind may be dearly bought by the disintegration of social organisation and a lowering of women’s capacity for motherhood. The succeeding chapters will show how the spread of capitalism affected the productive capacity of women. AE – She was very interested in all sorts of advancement by women, in improving their condition in the family firm in Street, in Somerset and also in London where she worked on the National Union of Suffrage Societies, she worked on the executive committee. There were other historians on that committee as well, professional historians. And she was very much concerned with improving the lot of working women in all aspects. This is a period when the historical relevance is becoming very important for a lot of people as to how the working class became impoverished, and how the women of the working class might pull themselves up. JM – But Alice Clark wasn’t doing economics of the present time, she was looking back to the 17th century, and what were her conclusions? AE – She, like many other people at the time, saw a progression from a small domestic unit in the middle ages, self-sufficient with an equal contribution of husband and wife – mutual respect prevailed. In the 17th century she sees a situation where there’s more work for wages but most production is still within the home. Waged work can be outwork so it’s still done in the home and it’s still women who are still visibly contributing to the household economy. In the 18th and 19th centuries by contrast, industrialisation, capitalisation, waged work takes place in factories – it’s done principally by men and then later by women as well, but women’s work in the home becomes devalued, and this has very serious moral as well as economic implications for the family and for the society, And it’s this concern with the present as well as the past that informs her work. JM – the investigation was undertaken with a view to discovering the actual circumstances of women’s lives in the 17th century. The theories with which I began this work have been abandoned and have been replaced by others. If these theories should in turn have to be discarded when a deeper understanding of history becomes possible, yet the picture of human life presented in the following pages will not entirely lose its value. AE – ‘The Working Life of Women in the 17th Century’ is still used today because it’s the only book-length study of this subject – still. On the other hand there are problems with the work – her original research was based entirely on printed records and many of them were 19th century printings of original documents. History has moved on and we now use original documents a lot more; there are many studies now of original documents but none of them gives the broad sweep that Alice Clark was able to give in the early part of the (20th) century. People are now much more hesitant about saying there was a grand transition in these three phases over a single century. It’s terribly useful as an introduction to what happens in the early modern period generally. JM – How is her booked viewed now? Here was somebody who came in, not an academic, and wrote this book which is still used today. AE – Historians now think that there are many modifications that have to be made to her original thesis; one of Alice’s favourite saying was ‘Those who don’t make mistakes don’t make anything’. So I think she would have been very pleased and willing to have made mistakes in her book in order to have made something, and she made a tremendous contribution. JM – What happened to Alice Clark after she wrote this book. What did she do then? AE – At that point, and after suffrage had been achieved she returned to the family factory in Street, and she spent the next 12 years or so as one of four directors of the Clark’s shoe factory, she never wrote any more history ,,,,,,,, Her only contribution to history is this book. JM _ Alice Clark identified the problems of work versus home nearly 100 years ago and still they continue. PREFACE It is because I love the place of my birth that I venture to put into print the following facts, connecting as they do the recent with the past. No attempt has been made at a literary production. It has been a long cherished desire, that before I go the way of all flesh, I should impart as best I could the knowledge essential to the reading of the memoranda and signatures of those who have gone before, traces of which are still left to speak to the intelligent. W PURSEY Brooks Street Somerset December, 1909 REMINISCENCES OF LIFE IN STREET Somersetshire from the year 1844. By An Old Inhabitant The Year 1844 stands strangely contrasted with that of 1909 – in that year the stage coach was constantly running from Exeter to London, many and varied were the incidents, common in the experience of travellers under the conditions then existing. The Piper’s Inn at Ashcott and Street Inn were the halting places where the horses were changed or rested, and passengers taken up at will and convenience, while at West End, Street (where Mrs R Barnes, widow of the late K Barnes now resides), there was a halt made as occasion necessitated, and horses and drivers were regaled, the proprietor, Mr Simeon Mogg, instructing the groom, W Giles, with the assistance of a lad, Thomas West, to give all attention and labour necessary. Here it will be well to reflect upon the conditions of the roads and the route taken. The roads then were far from what they are today as regards their condition – no steam rollers in these primitive times went before the traveller, levelling and making plain and easy the mode of transit – again the route was anything but a pleasant and easy one; the reader who has from time to time travelled over Wearyall Hill will know, or can easily form an idea of the difficulty of drawing the coach laden with passengers and luggage up and over the circuitous route, which thanks to those who constructed the new road is now discarded except for business and farm purposes. The coach commonly known in those days as the prisoners’ coach, was anxiously awaited, especially when prisoners known to the inhabitants were expected to pass; the distance traversed was from Wells to Taunton, and from Taunton to Wells. Hanging then was frequent for various offences, this formerly took place at Ilchester, but eventually was transferred to Taunton, and many are the incidents which might be recollected of prisoners and prison life at this time. The first man hung at Taunton was a man of Weston-Super-Mare, the second case was that of a woman from Shapwick for poisoning her family; and strange indeed were the desires of the said prisoner; as she neared the hour of execution, after eating a good breakfast, she requested that she might be hanged in her black silk dress which was granted.

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